You know who to call when you have ghosts but who do you call when you have monsters?

A group of young children are members of the Monster Squad, a club who idolise anything monster-orientated in their treehouse hideaway. When they find out that real monsters including Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster have invaded their small town, they realise that it is up to them to save the day as the adults would never believe them.

‘The Goonies with monsters’ is how most people view The Monster Squad and whilst that comparison is largely accurate, it does do this fantastic film such a disservice as there’s far more going on here than being a horror-based version of Spielberg’s kids classic. Co-written by Fred Dekker and Shane Black (considered one of the pioneer screenwriters of the action genre with the Lethal Weapon films under his belt), the smart script both pays homage to the old films and brilliantly brings them up-to-date for the then-modern era of the 1980s. This is a film which plays upon the premise that monsters, and all things horror, are the coolest things to a bunch of twelve-year old boys. They are falling in love with the genre for the first time here in their little monster club, and the audience is reminded of their first forays into the genre.

There is something quaint and innocent about this whole film that has attracted such a cult audience over the years. It wasn’t very successful upon its initial release, but time has been extremely kind to The Monster Squad over the years. I’ve never been entirely sure who the film is targeted at – I think it is meant to be a children’s film, though there is far more bad language and serious action (quite a few people die in this one) than you’d probably want to subject your own kids to. Perhaps it’s this confusion which led to both adults and children thinking it was for the other age group and deciding not to watch it. Regardless of who the film was geared towards then, it’s clear that adults have taken this to their heart, particularly those in the thirty-forty demographic who will have been young when this was doing the rounds. There is a real love and affection for the genre shown across almost every aspect of the film and it’s this endearing concept which has kept it feeling fresh.

The Monster Squad is by far from perfect and this is largely down to the plot, which is fairly loose and coincidental and harks back to the monster mash team-ups from the 40s, where the narrative was just a sketchy mess of ideas designed to throw the big monsters together. The prologue is little more than a MacGuffin to give the monsters a reason to be in suburban America, but the film assumes you don’t really care about that and just proceeds to go with the flow. The Monster Squad borders on being funny and scary from herein out. It’s funny in places, though you wish it was funnier in others. Legions of fans across the world won’t help but raise a laugh whenever they hear the “Wolfman’s got nards!” line but the film really needed more silliness like that when it matters.

Stan Winston provides the updated make-up jobs on the monsters and they all look fantastic. Frankenstein’s monster is probably the easiest one of the group to get ‘right’ and Winston opts for the classic look here. It’s the revamped versions of the Wolfman, the Creature and the Mummy which look great, particularly a brief werewolf transformation sequence that deserves more appreciation. It’s a pity that the latter two don’t get much to do in the film at all. The bulk of the monster action involves Dracula, portrayed by Duncan Regehr, and the Monster, played by Tom Noonan. Regehr’s Dracula isn’t the best incarnation of the bloodthirsty count you’re ever going to see but he manages to switch between the elegance and menace of the role well. However, it’s Noonan’s Monster who steals the show, as the lumbering brute develops a sweet relationship with a little girl. Throwbacks to the infamous scene in which the Monster stumbles across a little girl next to a lake in the original 1931 version, The Monster Squad develops the innocent bond even further here, leading to a heart-warming moment during the finale which will have even the most hardened souls reaching for the tissues.

At under eighty minutes long, The Monster Squad is one film where you actually want the production team to have rolled with it a little longer, even for another ten minutes. The film is pacey and light-hearted for the most, so you’ll be able to sit back and breeze through it. Surprisingly, the youngsters cast in the lead roles are all excellent – Andre Gower, Michael Faustino, Bobby Kiger and Brent Chalem (as ‘Fat Kid’) will not get on your nerves like the know-it-all kids from other horror films, and work together well. However, it’s little Ashley Bank who steals the show as the sweet, good-natured Phoebe who steals the Monster’s heart with their touching, though short-lived, friendship.

The Monster Squad is not perfect but it’s close. It’s rare example of a film which will have you reverting to your twelve-year old childlike state once again no matter how many times you’ve seen it. It brings back your own memories of watching horror films for the first time, whilst delivering a solid slice of 80s horror-comedy action at the same time.

Two canisters of Trioxin, the ‘zombie gas’, fall from the back of a military convoy as it passes through the town of Westvale. There, a group of kids accidentally open one of the canisters as part of an initiation. The gas quickly spreads through the graveyard and soon the town is overrun as the dead start coming back to life, seeking the brains of the living.

Following up what many people believe to be one of the best zombie films of all time, not least one of the most entertaining horror-comedies ever put to the screen, was always going to be an impossible task. And it’s a task that director Ken Wiederhorn sadly fails at in Return of the Living Dead Part II. Return of the Living Dead was a fresh, exciting take on the zombie genre which combined some hilarious comedy with some truly effective scares and atmosphere and managed to perfectly balance the two together with a punk rock mentality to go with it. Return of the Living Dead Part II doesn’t manage to get the balance right and is all the worse for it. Though this can easily be attributed to the loss of Dan O’Bannon, the director and writer of the original, who didn’t return for this one. His input is sorely missing here.

Bizarrely, Return of the Living Dead Part II comes off more like an inferior remake than any true follow-up and it significantly tones down the violence and gore. With the combination of a kid in one of the main roles, something suggests they were targeting a younger audience who clearly enjoyed the lure of the video cover of the adult-orientated original in the rental store. In place of the violence and gore is a more comedic approach, which barely works. Too much slapstick and not enough smart writing is this film’s main problem, though that comes down to a director who is obviously not comfortable with the comedy material he’s been presented. Ken Wiederhorn previously directed atmospheric Nazi zombie flick Shock Waves so he’s got the horror credentials, he just lacks the finer touches of the funny bone to go with it. A dancing Michael Jackson-esque zombie and a severed hand which gives someone the middle finger are among some of the cheesier moments I can remember. They’re just not particularly funny and come off as a little desperate to make the audience laugh.

Return of the Living Dead Part II isn’t scary as a result. There was something genuinely terrifying about the situations the characters in the original found themselves in, from the paramedics getting mobbed by zombies to a guy having to throw himself into a crematorium to avoid turning into a zombie. There’s nothing even close to that here, despite the characters finding themselves in tricky life-or-death situations, and the feeling of repetition from the original just continues to dominate proceedings here. Only a different finale, involving the surviving characters luring the zombies to the electricity plant with a fresh batch of brains, gives the narrative any sort of new life and direction. By that time, it’s too late.

James Karen and Thom Matthews, arguably the two breakout stars of the original as the bumbling employees who caused the entire outbreak, are back but as totally new characters. Whilst the dynamic between the two isn’t as good in this one, as the script is weaker, they do share a few decent moments. As before, Karen is by far the funnier of the two and his incessant whining is funny, even if it’s a bit overplayed now. There’s a few nods to their prior roles – “I feel like we’ve been here before. You… Me… Them!” – but these characters just stand out as much. Only Phillip Bruns as a barmy doctor makes any sort of impression from the new characters, with Michael Kenworthy’s young Jesse being one of those annoying know-it-all kids who frequently popped up in the 80s.

The zombies look more cartoony than scary – even the famous Tarman zombie looks like a cheaper knock-off costumed version. From some weak-looking puppets to a bunch of extras wearing some low rent Halloween masks and make-up, these zombies don’t look like they’ve been rotting in the ground for too long, with the majority of them all still nicely suited-and-booted in their Sunday best. The gore is virtually non-existent here and what little we get is far too timid to be effective.

You almost want to like Return of the Living Dead Part II more than you do because of it being a sequel to the original but any sort of originality and novelty value that the original had has simply been frittered away here with some poor choices of tone and direction. It’s not overly terrible, but if Return of the Living Dead Part II didn’t want to be compared to the original so badly, it should have tried to do its own thing rather than recycle the same thing.

Author Roger Cobb is a troubled man, having been separated from his wife; their only son Jimmy disappeared without a trace and his aunt committed suicide by hanging. On top of everything else, he has been pressured by his publisher to write another book. After his aunt’s funeral, Cobb decides to move into her house for a while to write his new novel about his experiences of Vietnam. He quickly becomes haunted by visions of demons from his past and wonders if he is going crazy.

No this is not a change of genre for me as I review Hugh Laurie’s TV drama. House is the first instalment of a horror series which I’ve never really gotten around to watch. There’s four of them in the House series but the front covers and posters never did it for me, and I’m not the biggest fan of ‘haunted house’ films – my query is why someone would willingly choose to stay in a house that is being tormented by ghosts and spirits when they could run for the hills at the first opportunity. Thankfully, House isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill haunted house film, gaining something of cult status upon its release back in the 80s, and the end result is something a million miles away from what I was expecting.

A trio of good hands from the Friday the 13th series get together here to make a screwball film which could only have come about in the 1980s. With producer Sean Cunningham, director Steve Miner (who directed the second and third Friday the 13th films) and composer Harry Manfredini, as well as a story by director/writer Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad), House is a silly 80s cheese fest which is a lot of fun if you like your horror and comedy rolled up together with a knowing wink and shrug of the shoulders. Unless you stick with it past the first third, you’d never think that House would turn out the way it does. Its almost as if the script originally had the film panning out as a serious supernatural thriller but then the writers seem to give up that idea and just throw in a load of rubber monsters and goofy humour. It works! There’s a vibe here along the lines of some Raimi-esque The Evil Dead film, though House never quite reaches those levels of silliness or scariness.

The tone is light-hearted and not too overtly frightening – think of Dekker’s The Monster Squad for something along a similar tone and atmosphere. Take for instance a scene in which Cobb chases a little child around the house – a child who has a dismembered hand crawling up his back. The slapstick approach to the scene allows the tone to remain light, despite a child being in danger. Other scenes involving Cobb trying to stop said hand from attacking his attractive neighbour who is flirting with him and blissfully unaware of the corpse in the bags add to the slapstick approach. But it never quite goes all of the way with the comedy, holding back from really going the extra mile. This is a big problem with House – it’s fun without being hysterical. You’ll sit and smile at some of the goings-on, but you’ll rarely crack out into fits of laughter.

Despite lacking a killer instinct with anything it throws at the camera, House does get its make-up effects spot on and has a lot of fun with them. The copious number of latex monsters that inhabit the house and attempt to kill Cobb keeps things flowing nicely and the pace is film is swift. They look ridiculous but the practical rubber effects do lend the proceedings a goofy charm and have that unmistakable 80s look, despite the obvious limitations. It’s here where a bit more pushing of the envelope and the rating would have worked. More blood and guts, particularly with the disposing of the demon version of his ex-wife, would have worked wonders to add more hilarity and ludicrousness. I guess House was never designed as that kind of film. The less said about Big Ben, the hulking zombie remains of one of Cobb’s old Vietnam comrades, the better. He turns up in the final third and supposedly links all of the little narrative strands together in his “it was me all along” speech. He looks like a rejected version of Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th films (or at least the later ones where he was actually a walking corpse). He’s easily the weakest-looking of the monsters on show here, though that’s probably because actor Richard Moll is a little more recognisable underneath the make-up than some of the other actors in make-up are.

William Katt makes for a decent lead role, handling the serious elements just as easily as the comedy and action moments as and when they are required. There are other actors in here with supporting roles, but they don’t really contribute a whole lot to the narrative – this is Katt’s film from the start. He does have rather dull one-note delivery, but it works to convey the different moods and feelings that Cobb experiences. Seeing his facial reactions to some of the sights and sounds he faces is one of the highlights of the film – the scene where he sets up a row of cameras and dons his Vietnam gear in preparation for midnight is great. Unfortunately, the big pay-off in the finale where Cobb redeems himself is underwhelming but that’s because the film had shifted gears from the emotional thriller aspects to willingly embrace the cheese and dorkiness of the whole thing.

If there’s one thing you can say about House, it’s that it manages to deliver a fair amount of silliness, though without any true laughs or scares. Some of the effects have aged badly and the film is a little too lightweight for its own good, but it’s rarely boring. You just don’t seem to get enough of anything good whenever it crops up. It’s not for the want of trying but I guess rose-tinted glasses will make fans who grew up on this remember it in a lot better light than it probably deserves.

Two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air which promptly reanimates a cadaver in the freezer. After their boss arrives and decides to cover everything up, they chop up the cadaver and the trio head across to the nearby crematorium to burn the remains. Unfortunately, the ash is caught in the rain outside and the entire graveyard is reanimated, which is not only bad news for the men inside but also for a group of teenagers partying there.

THE original zombie comedy movie, Return of the Living Dead was like a breath of fresh air into the zombie genre in the mid-80s after George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead had spawned a never-ending slew of exploitative Italian knock-offs which had worked the formula to death. Another zombie film like the rest would have been the final nail in this sub-genre. Along came Return of the Living Dead to straighten the score. No relation to Romero’s trilogy despite the title, Return of the Living Dead is a horror-comedy classic which is almost unrivalled in the affection that horror fans have for it.

Horror-comedies are all the rage now and have been for some time but if you think back, there weren’t too many efforts before Return of the Living Dead came along. You’d have to go all of the way back to the likes of Abbott and Costello pairing up with the famous Universal monsters in the late 50s to really find a decent example of a successful horror-comedy teaming. Return of the Living Dead’s success and popularity would prompt one to ask ‘why had that been the case all of these years?’ Surely someone had a decent idea to mix comedy and horror together but it seemed like a no go, especially during the bleak days of the 70s backwoods horror cycle which added a raw element of realism to the previously-glossy horrors of the 60s. However, the 80s provided the perfect decade to dare to be different and so Return of the Living Dead came along, providing the template for horror-comedies for years to come.

Return of the Living Dead is naturally funny. This isn’t a gag reel filled with jokes – the humour is organic and comes realistically from the hysterical reactions that the characters have to what is going on around them. You have a trio of established actors in Clu Gulager, James Karen and Don Calfa who attempt to hold everything together before they burst out laughing. The sharp, witty scripts helps them, their comic timing is impeccable and their deadpan reactions to everything that happens just makes the film a hundred times funnier than it was ever conceived to be. Karen is the standout here and his performance, particularly during the first quarter of the film as he tries to deal with the reanimated cadaver, is hilarious. Coupled with younger actor Thom Matthews, the pair make up quite the comedy duo as their prying around in the basement causes all of this carnage to go off – it’s the slapstick-like visuals and the constant wailing of Karen that really cause all of the laughter.

The bulk of the laughs are confined to the first half of the film and once the full zombie outbreak happens, things get a little more tense and serious. Unlike many horror-comedies, Return of the Living Dead constantly reminds the audience that it is watching a horror film to go with all of the goofing around and manages to tread the fine line between laughs and scares. There are some true scares to be had amongst the hi-jinks and for all of their silliness, the zombies are actually pretty frightening at times. The first appearance of the cult ‘Tarman’ zombie in the basement sends shivers down the spine: a slimy, skeletal monster with a jelly-legged walk, Tarman is an awesome make-up effect. He remains one of the most indelible images of 80s horror, with his oily complexion, jerky movements and cries of “BRRRAAAIIINNNSSS” ringing out onto the screen. Tarman does get to feast on some brains too in a rather icky moment but the film’s goriest (or at least suggestively gory) scene is when half of a mounted anatomical dog comes back to life. I found that more distressing than any sight of zombies eating brains! And I’m no dog lover too!

Writer/director Dan O’Bannon cleverly plays upon audiences preconceptions of what a zombie film is supposed to be – you know, the shuffling flesh-eating fiends with the whole ‘trauma to the head to kill them’ thing – but then re-writes the rules with fast-moving monsters who take more a blow to the head to stay down and can talk and act based on their former lives. The script is set within a film universe where Night of the Living Dead was apparently based on true events and the remains of that original zombie outbreak were hidden away in canisters. That’s about as far as the subtle self-awareness goes as the film was originally perceived as a sequel to Romero’s films before O’Bannon came on board. The characters don’t do too many stupid things to further the plot, the irony here being that everything they end up doing makes the situation worse despite doing what they saw happened ‘in the movie.’

Not only content with twisting around the zombie genre, Dan O’Bannon purposely makes his cast full of punks as a sort of a middle-fingered gesture towards 80s slashers which had casts of faceless stereotypical teenagers. Funnily enough, most of the punks end up being faceless stereotypical teenagers but there are a few memorable characters, most famously Linnea Quigley’s Trash, who strips off on a gravestone and ends up being naked for the rest of the film to fulfil the requisite T&A quota.

Return of the Living Dead also features a great punk rock soundtrack. Whilst I’m not the biggest lover of punk, the soundtrack fits beautifully with all of the carnage going on. The title track ‘Party Time’ by 45 Grave is a head banger and kicks off the zombie outbreak with a real explosive energy.

Though this has the 80s stapled all over it, Return of the Living Dead is still as excellent today as it was back then. Brimming with comic energy, overflowing with great set pieces and still managing to provide enough chills and thrills to remind you of its horror roots, it’s the perfect party film to watch every Halloween.

Talented medical student Herbert West has discovered a serum that re-animates dead bodies, though his previous human experiment in Switzerland ended in catastrophe. West goes to an American college where he moves in with student Daniel Cain. Immediately suspicious of West, it isn’t until Cain stumbles upon an experiment with a dead cat that he begins to believe in the serum. But when word of this discovery gets out to renowned brain research Dr Carl Hill and he tries to get his hands on the serum, West and Cain find themselves in an ever-worsening situation involving murder and reanimated bodies.

Cult classics don’t come much more cult than Stuart Gordon’s legendary 1985 horror-comedy Re-Animator. Though slightly dated in its appearance nowadays, Re-Animator is still a superbly horrific and humorous film in equal measure. Perfecting the art of black comedy to a tee, Re-Animator is based upon the Herbert West–Reanimator short stories by famous horror master H. P. Lovecraft which is a Frankenstein-style tale about a scientist who believes he can bring the dead to life by injecting them with a re-agent serum that he has designed. As we know from the world of literature, meddling in things that humans can’t comprehend doesn’t end well and this is no exception.

Re-Animator would never be made today. It was a labour of love from a team of people which was a lot like the effort that Sam Raimi and co. put into The Evil Dead. With low budgets forcing the makers to get creative and practical in their approaches, the films took the genre by storm. Whilst it gets overlooked in favour of Raimi’s ground-breaking film, Re-Animator has rightly been heralded as the genre-busting favourite it has become on its own two feet – it was a rare thing for famous critic Roger Ebert to be constructive about a horror film but he loved Re-Animator like most reviewers do.

Combining gut-wrenching home-grown splatter and fiendish “you shouldn’t laugh but you will” comedy is never an easy feat in the horror genre but Re-Animator gets the mix spot on. The gore is plentiful, sometimes gross, but never 100% realistic and this adds to the nature of the film. As things get out of control and more blood starts to flow, you just get to sit back and enjoy the silliness. The film knows that it’s a bit on the loopy side and goes with the flow, becoming even more outlandish in the process. It would be virtually impossible to watch this with a straight face.Part of the reason this works so well is down to the script, which treads the fine line flawlessly throughout the film, and creates some interesting characters.

Thankfully these characters were cast without fault. Jeffrey Combs is brilliant as the slightly-insane Herbert West. Right from the first moment you see him on the screen, he is a magnetic presence with his off-beat delivery and you’re unsure as to what is going through his head at any one moment. Should you root for him or hate him? Combs plays it straight throughout which is great as some of the deadpan situations the characters find themselves in could have been daft if everyone was goofing around. Much of the humour in Re-Animator is based on sight gags, the highlight of which being West and Cain’s struggle with a re-animated cat in the basement where the art of slapstick comes into its own.Special mention should be given to the late David Gale who plays Dr Carl Hill and spends a great portion of the film with his head sitting in a tray of blood as his decapitated body stumbles around trying to do tasks for him. Also of note is Barbara Crampton as Cain’s love interest Megan, who looks good, gets naked a couple of times and gives a new definition to getting head in the film’s most perversely funny moment.

The comedy only goes so far though and it’s up to the horror-based elements to come into their own when this happens. As mentioned, the film is gory and it gets progressively worse as the film goes on with zombies, decapitations and electric surgical saws all coming into play. There’s lots of violence though due to the nature of the film it comes off very cartoony as opposed to anything sinister or serious. There is a line in horror where gore goes from gross to comedic if handled in the right way and Stuart Gordon and co. know exactly what they are doing. It was one of the goriest films of its time and was butchered upon VHS release back in the day. But we live in an era of Saw and Re-Animator looks a little quaint now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for the faint-hearted but the bad taste boundary is always maintained.

Richard Band’s theme, which is a none-too-subtle reworking of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho theme, sets the tone of the film during the title credits, adding a bit of mystery and eeriness to proceedings. It’s the icing on top of a very blood-soaked cake.

Any self-respecting horror fan should see Re-Animator. From the decade that brought us so many classic B-movie splatter flicks, it’s a twisted little film which comes with a massive reputation and delivers every second of its running time. A must see.

Angela is having a party, Jason and Freddy are too scared to come. But You’ll have a hell of a time.

On Halloween night, a group of teenage friends decide to hold a secret party at Hull House, an abandoned funeral parlour. Here, they gather together in front of a mirror to hold a séance but unwittingly unleash an evil force which begins to take them over one-by-one.

Night of the Demons represents the ultimate best and the worst of 80s horror. If you’re looking for a complex plot, interesting characters, stunning cinematography and serious approach then you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. Coming off as more of a goofy teen version of The Evil Dead, Night of the Demons is a definite crowd-pleaser, full of scares, gore, nudity and a dose of sickly black humour all touched up with a truly 80s vibe. It received a limited theatrical release but found its following on home video during the glory days of video rentals and has become something of a definitive 80s cult classic. You’ve got to love the 80s and the home video market for opening up a whole new world of entertaining and fun horror flicks that just wouldn’t have been made otherwise.

It’s a party night film, that’s for sure. Probably best watched with a group of preferably drunken mates, Night of the Demons wins awards purely for being something so innocent, so watchable and so enthusiastically entertaining. It’s not intending to be The Exorcist or The Shining. There are no real intentions to seriously scare and get under the skin. It’s not Shakespeare for the horror crowd. It’s there to provide some thrills, spills and a few gags like you’d get on a visit to a classic Halloween haunted house. The opening animated title sequence with a classic 80s synth-rock soundtrack should prove what sort of credentials that this is aiming for. Though it does owe a lot to Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, probably more than it would like to admit.

Director Kevin Tenney virtually steals Raimi’s ‘demon POV’ cam with long, sweeping forays through the house when the demons are unleashed. There are 360° camera shots, clever camera tricks involving mirrors and shots from other innovative angles. He does well to use these shots as Hull House looks fantastic inside with a vast array of basements, staircases, corridors and rooms for the characters to fumble around in. Dimly lit and decidedly creepy, Hull House is the perfect setting for such a film and the camera makes excellent use of every dark nook and cranny, with demons popping up left, right and centre off-camera to startle the viewer. Tenney’s camera tricks and use of visuals to generate some suspense is highly skilled and if I’m being blunt, deserving of a more respectable film. Cheap scares they may be but they are effective at conveying the moody vibe. However the film isn’t all about the cheap scares and flits between some serious scaring and outright joking around on occasion, with the uneven balance never really clicking in favour of either.

Night of the Demons doesn’t set out to break the mould though it’s happy to live up to genre expectations and so the gratuitous overindulgences which genre fans have come to love are on full display here. The gore and nudity is at the forefront of Night of the Demons charm and you won’t find too many better examples of 80s excess than here. The make-up effects are superb with hideous demon transformations, eyes being gouged out, tongues bitten off and, in the film’s coup-de-grace moment, a possessed teenager manages to make a tube of lipstick disappear into her exposed nipple. The practical nature of the special effects adds to their charm. The best non-gore special effects moment is reserved for Angela, the goth girl who gets possessed, as she floats down the halls and corridors of the house. It’s a weird, unnerving effect which adds to her supernatural aura.

The majority of the nudity is supplied by Scream Queen Linnea Quigley, who provides the breasts for the aforementioned lipstick moment (undeniably two of the reasons why Night of the Demons has become such a cult 80s classic for teenage boys). Cast-wise the film is near enough spot on. All of the performances are stuck in the 80s with their dated portrayals but like everything else, this adds into the charm. Cathy Podewell is Judy, the virginal girl who spends most of the film dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Podewell is unbelievably cute and emits a nice innocence about her, even if she is somewhat a little bland at times. Hal Havins as Stooge makes for an annoying and obnoxious loudmouth and the other actors fit firmly into their stock 80s teenage character roles: the preppy good guy, token black guy and so on). Amelia Kinkade is worth a mention as Angela, turning her into some Freddy Krueger-like puny-spouting horror figure who would return in the next two sequels.

Night of the Demons works perfectly well as what it sets itself out to be from the start – a campy low brow fright fest which relies heavily on genre staples to deliver constant mindless fun. Though it has dated somewhat with the 80s hairstyles, clothes, music and character stereotypes, Night of the Demons should be required viewing at Halloween parties.

The devilish Ghoulies find themselves tagging along with a struggling carnival and proceed to turn the haunted house attraction into a real money spinner by scaring people for real. But it isn’t long before the Ghoulies just can’t resist taking everything one step too far.

I have to say that this sequel really took me by surprise. The original Ghoulies was a bargain basement Gremlins-wannabe featuring a bunch of moth-ridden, soiled puppets which looked to be falling apart at the seams but attempted to cause mischief nevertheless. It was awful and the title creatures were given little screen time (not surprisingly!). But from Charles Band, the man who later developed a fetish for tiny terror films (Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Hideous!,Blood Dolls, etc), I would have expected no less than a sequel and here we are. It’s hardly in The Dark Knight levels of superior sequels but compared to the original, it’s definitely in The Godfather Part II mould.

This first sequel (of which there were three – I know, the film world amazes me) starts to put things right by actually focusing on the Ghoulies and giving them plenty of screen time. As crude and as damaged as the puppets look, at least they’re given something to do this time around. They’re not the Gremlins and they’re not even at Crites level (from the Critters films for those who may be wondering) but these little monsters can still manage to pull a chuckle or two out of the viewer and they’ve all got some individual personality. All three of the creatures from the first one are back as well as a new puppet – the bald green one from the film poster is my favourite as he looks like an overgrown Jelly Baby. Here they cause all sorts of mayhem in the carnival, with the shooting gallery scene being an amusing highlight. It’s hardly rocket science comedy and it panders to the school children in all of us. Little things hitting each other – its basic Punch ‘n’ Judy comedy but it works in a low budget horror-comedy like this. Whilst the puppets look as worn out as they did in the original, the stop motion sequences don’t work very well.

As for the premise, well it’s as fleshed out as it possibly could be. Basically an excuse for the monster hi-jinks, the film sees a standard story of a struggling business on the verge of collapse being suddenly revitalised when something extraordinary happens to it. You know the direction that the story will take but the fun here is just sitting back and allowing everything to transpire by the book. As long as there is some Ghoulie action going, it’s not too difficult. The light-hearted tone of the film and a generous helping of daft 80s comedy helps to hide over many of the cracks. This is the film we had imagined the original would be. Thankfully the producer learnt from his mistakes and made sure that Ghoulies II lived up to the expectations. Given how terrible the original was, I wonder just how many people gave this one a chance.

I don’t want to sound like I’m praising it too much. The film lacks any measure of quality and has a budget about as big as some other film’s buffet carts. But as far as junk films go, there’s fun to be had and credit needs to be given where it’s due. The beauty of setting the film inside a carnival, specifically one with a haunted house, gives the production team a field day to create some fantastic sets. The haunted house looks like great Halloween fun and allowing the Ghoulies to run wild in it adds to its low grade charms. It’s the type of setting that has seen relatively few horror films utilise to good effect (Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse springs to mind) but one which can work well when required.

Diminutive actor Phil Fondacaro is the pick of the cast, playing the carnival’s resident midget who thinks he should be a Shakespearian actor instead of being stuck as one of the cheap gimmicks inside the haunted house. In many respects, this mirrors Fondacaro: he’s an actor I’ve seen many times in these low budget flicks and he’s far better than any of the material given. The rest of the cast fulfill their obligatory 80s stereotype roles. Expect lots of bright fashion, guys in vests and copious amounts of hairspray.

Ghoulies II is a vast improvement over the original. Whilst it’s still not a great film, it’s more than watchable in a daft 80s horror-comedy sort of way. If you’re in desperate need of a fix of little demonic creatures resorting to toilet humour to entertain, then check it out. It’s not Shakespeare but it will fill a gap.

When a mysterious waxwork museum comes to town, the enigmatic owner invites two teenage girls to bring a few friends along to a special midnight screening of the exhibit. Once in the museum, the group split up to look at the exhibits but when they cross over the ropes to examine them closer, they find themselves actually in the horror scene on display. Forced to battle vampires, mummies, werewolves and more, the group realise that if you die inside the scene, you die for real.

Ah the 80s. Only in this decade could such a frankly shallow premise have spawned such a gloriously over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek comedy-horror fest. Waxwork is like a warped cross between a slasher film, featuring a group of 80s caricatures being picked off one-by-one in a strange place, and a loving homage to the classic horrors of old. Never scary in the slightest and filled with so much camp, it would make a drag queen blush, Waxwork defines the 80s comedy-horror to a tee. And let’s face it, if you’ve ever been to a waxworks (especially a decent one) then the figures can look a little too life-like for their own good. It’s perfect horror material to mine!

Ok, so the plot sounds a bit daft and it’s a very sketchy premise which isn’t overly well-explained (like just who is the waxwork owner, Lincoln, and why is he out to destroy the world). But the beauty with Waxwork is that because the film is basically a series of short films interlocked by the MacGuffin plot about the exhibits coming to life, then every five or ten minutes a new ‘scene’ comes to life which keeps the film fresh and fast-moving. So if werewolves aren’t your thing, then sit tight because a few minutes later you’ll have vampires and then a bit later on some zombies or a mummy. It’s a ‘something for everyone’ approach which is reminiscent of the old Amicus anthologies and works, even if the lesser scenes are unfortunately dragged out longer than the more exciting scenes.

Each scene works on different levels. The zombie scene, with its black and white throwbacks to Night of the Living Dead, adds some much-needed sinister mood and some great zombie make-up but it’s all way too brief. The werewolf scene is well executed, featuring a pre-Lord of the Rings John Rhys-Davies as the man afraid of the full moon and providing some decent werewolf make-up effects as well as a whole batch of deliciously over-the-top gore. I’ve never been a major vampire fan but the segment here works well, living up to the usual clichés of the sub-genre and featuring some silly comedy moments involving a man chained to a table with half a leg missing. It also stars the stunning Michelle Johnson as the target of the vampire’s affection so it’s easy on the eyes. The mummy scene does what you’d expect a mummy film to do – the numerous Universal Mummy sequels of the 40s proved that the limited narrative couldn’t stretch out too far – and provides the requisite stuntman-in-bandages and Egyptian curses come to life.

The most out-of-place segment comes when the virginal girl (Deborah Foreman of April Fool’s Day fame) enters the sadistic realm of the Maquis de Sade. He’s hardly known as an iconic horror character and the perverse nature of the scene involving sexual torture seems a bit of place with the comedy-horror throwbacks to the wolf man and the mummy. Foreman’s acting in this scene is mesmerizingly erotic but leaves a bit of a weird taste afterwards. It is Waxwork ‘s ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ finale that really spoils the film as ex-Avenger (not the Marvel superhero team but the old TV series) Patrick Macnee and his band of do-gooders storm the museum and engage in mortal combat with the wax exhibits that have come to life. The scene is in total disarray, with people doing what they like on camera and there’s no choreography or anything – just loads of extras fighting each other with anything they can lay their hands upon. It’s hard to keep track of what is going on and it’s almost as if the director just sat back and soaked in the chaos without a clue as to what was intended. All the while Zach Galligan, of Gremlins, has this dozy look on his face an seems almost bemused as the audience as to what is going on.

Waxwork looks to be a decent production though. The museum looks suitably creepy, the individual wax sets look top drawer on their own and then the individual scenes (when the sets come to life) look good as well. Gore is plentiful in that gratuitous 80s style so expect plenty of ludicrous squishy moments, including the mummy crushing a guy’s head under his foot and a werewolf ripping the head off an old man. The gore doesn’t take itself seriously so neither should you. And rounding off the madness is David Warner, who is dressed up like a sinister Willy Wonka and has a hoot as Lincoln, and his two servants: an Eastern European-speaking midget and a giant Lurch-like butler.

Nothing really makes much sense but then the film feels like a dozen films all rolled together anyway so just sit back and enjoy Waxwork, a great slice of 80s comedy-horror with a large side-order of ‘fun’ slapped into it. It’s an enjoyable cult film which is sadly hampered from total greatness by a weak plot and disappointing finale.

A cheerleading squad head up to a summer camp in order to compete in the district finals where they soon fall victim one-by-one to a unknown killer.

I thought I’d keep the plot as condensed as possible since that’s all about there is to this cheap late 80s slasher which is heavy on the silliness, top-heavy on the nudity, light on gore and puts a terrible strain on the attention span of anyone watching. Who would have thought watching a load of hot cheerleaders getting sliced to bits in a summer camp would be such a chore? To be fair to the makers of the film, there’s little camouflaging what they set out to make which is of the ‘boozy college dorm’s regular Saturday night entertainment’ variety.

Basically a goofy version of Friday the 13th with cheerleaders, Cheerleader Camp shows little sign of its slasher credentials as the first half of the film borders on being another tacky American teen sex-comedy set in a summer camp. All of the obligatory clichés are present including the slutty cheerleaders, the fat ‘comic relief’ guy, the weird caretaker, the perverted sheriff, uptight counselors, etc. The characters are the stock variety we’ve seen before so many times during the 80s but what really drives the proverbial nail through the skull with them is how badly acted they all are. Whether it’s intentional or not, some of the actors really grind away at the audience until you get your watch out and wait for the countdown to their demise. The script has them all engaging in various sexual shenanigans and hi-jinks around the camp.

It’s a frat boy comedy full of juvenile sexual humour where the biggest ‘jokes’ come from silly rapping and of course the obligatory scene in which the fat guy bares his ass. The biggest crime that Cheerleader Camp commits is that it thinks its funny but it blatantly isn’t. The attempted laughs fall at the first hurdle, the goofy characters are just irritating and the genuine sense of cheese that the film tries to convey really comes off harming it more than it should.

You’d have thought that the film would at least share the wealth with slasher goodies and for this I’m referring to the gore and nudity. You have to wait some time before the kills start up in earnest and even then there’s not much to savour. The film is nowhere near as bloody as you’d expect, save for one or two of the deaths, and although there’s a bit of malice involved in some of the kills, the majority of them are so routine you’ll not even bat an eye lid when one of the cast is killed off. Filled with red herrings from the start, it’s a tad too easy to spot the twist despite the best efforts of the script to keep you guessing until the very end.

There’s also a small amount of female flesh and this cheerleader camp must have the world record for the team with the biggest breasts in the world. Surely the physics required in sticking to the energetic cheerleading routines with such, ahem, ample participants, is a bit ridiculous. But the girls get naked so who cares – certainly not the guy in casting who decided to cram a load of porn stars and Playboy centerfolds into the film. Kudos to you, Mr Casting Director. Other casting comments include the star of the show, Betsy Russell who has gone on to greater recent fame as ‘Mrs Jigsaw’ in the Saw films and genre character actor George ‘Buck’ Flower as the cranky caretaker who blurts out the single funniest line of the film whilst watching the cheerleaders practice when he says “makes your pee-pee harder than a bag of nickel jawbreakers.”

Cheerleader Camp has some alright moments from time to time but it’s just too daft to be entertaining. Low budget, low brow and high trash. I guess some people will view it as a ‘so bad it’s good’ slasher but at a time when the slasher was on life support, even Cheerleader Camp fails to get the pulse going.

Angela has been released from a mental asylum and whilst she was there she underwent a full sex change to become a woman. She gets a job as a counsellor at a summer camp and everything seems normal. That is until teenagers start to break the rules and she has to punish them – by death.

Sleepaway Camp may not one of the strongest of the 80s slasher breed but it is definitely the one you’ll never forget should you ever watch it. With one of the most shocking and pretty darn nightmarish endings ever, it became a cult hit. And with success and fame come sequels. Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers completely abandons everything that made the original such a unique horror film by ditching the gloomy edge, the freaky characters and the shocking revelations. Instead we get a completely campy, moronic, typical 80s body count flick complete with plenty of T&A and gore. The acting is dire. The dialogue is awful. The film itself looks terrible with lots of grain, bad lighting and awful sound but it all adds to the ‘seedy and I shouldn’t be watching this’ feel that a lot of older 80s films have on video. But there’s just something so entertaining about it all that compels you to keep watching. This is the ultimate cheesy slasher film.

I wasn’t a big fan of the original but Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers is about as radical a rethink of a series as I can recall. It’s a move which has both good and bad points. I mean I lost count of the gratuitous nudity after the fourth breast shot and there was more to come. It’s mainly the same couple of skanks that get naked but at least they chose the ones with decent racks! There is a pretty good body count as people get their heads and hands hacked off quite a lot. There’s death by drowning in an outhouse, a human barbecue and someone getting killed with a Freddy Kruger no less! Hell even a couple of voyeuristic kids aren’t immune to the body count. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the film was bordering on a parody but that’s giving the filmmakers too much credit. However there are a few in-jokes towards the genre including having a few of the characters dressing up as Jason, Freddy and Leatherface.

The film is far too stupid at times and it’s virtually plot-less. We know who the killer is right from the opening scene so gone is the element of surprise. Then the film just plods along, having Angela kill off a teenager every ten to fifteen minutes or so. Angela was a quiet, shy girl in the original whom you didn’t expect to be the killer come the final revelation. Here she has grown up and is now a one-liner slasher ala Freddy Kruger in later years, who dispatches her victims with numerous funny and unfunny quotes.

Pamela Springsteen (yes, she is related to Bruce) will either annoy the hell out of you or amuse you with her over-the-top approach to the role of Angela. She did both for me and after a while being annoyed with her enthusiasm, I grew to like her in the role. The infectious enthusiasm she brings to the role certainly pushes the character over the limits of sanity. Also in the ‘more famous relative’ category is Renée Estevez, sister of Emilio, who plays the role of the final girl with as much conviction of a worm in a bird’s nest.

The rest of the cast look way too old to be going to summer camp anyway and I actually thought they were fellow counsellors at first! They are made up the usual teen fodder characters – you’ll be hard pressed to remember any of their names both real or characters once the film is over. There’s the shy final girl, the slut, the jocks, the straight-laced hero and a dude with one of the best 80s mullets ever. Seriously this guy just reeks of the 80s. Also on the cast list is Walter Gotell, who will probably be more famous for his many appearances as the head of Russian intelligence in the James Bond films.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers uses a completely different approach to the genre than the original did. What made the original so unique wouldn’t have worked for a second time so instead we get a fun but incredibly stupid slasher film which is ideal for parties but not for film critics.